seriously not being a smart ass when i say this, but you guys really need to find Johan and bring him in as a consultant and bring this place back to what it was. Quality here has been going down ever since he sold and it took a huge nose dive with the new site.

For myself, the notion of trying to read the forums on an iPad mini (my own mobile device) is a non-starter. So, I find myself convinced that most people view the site from a laptop or larger.

I don't have any issues reading the forum on my iPhone, or replying to posts (like this one). Certainly easier than the old forum was.

Maybe not, but I certainly agree with PITingres that while I might occasionally catch up on my phone I am using a laptop or desktop 95% of the time.

I have zero issues using airliners on mobile unlike when had the "classic view". Less and less people own personal desktops. Look at the link and stats I posted above. Mobile access to the web passed desktops last year worldwide. Desktops are a shrinking market, especially to the under 30 crowd. Arguing to cater to this group is similar to doing the same for VCR users in the late 1990s.

I agree with the mobile and social media comments however for the people that want higher quality, better viewing, and more detailed info Forums are still the key for that audience. We want people to have the option to view on mobile if needed on the go or traveling hence why Paul works on the Social Media (recently hit 700k likes on FaceBook).

As for the other suggestions, I will run them by the developer and team to see their thoughts on them. We have some of these items on the Squawk sheet but I am still fresh tp Airliners.net and would like to give you a more accurate and in-depth answer than "We can look into this". However, I really appreciate the time and passion you share for the community.

Thanks in advance, I will follow up after I have time to run the other suggestions by the team.

Jeff M

mx330 wrote:

Well first of all welcome and we hope positive things happen.I read a couple of pages of this thread (didn’t read it all) and I noticed most comments are forum related. So, as an active photographer let me throw in a couple of comments/suggestions regarding the photo database and photographer tools.

Grid: when you are browsing thru the gallery, you can either select display=detail or display=card but “detail” will always come default. My suggestion is that people can actually select their predefined value.

Thumbnails: photos on a ratio different than 3:2 would look “cropped” on the thumbnail, please help fixing that.

Search: the search engine when viewing photos, sometimes uses more than half the screen showing all the different fields/options for searching. It is actually worst on mobile (iPad), you have to scroll down too much to finally get to the photos. As well as the suggestion I made for the Grid, may I recommend that the user can select its default “Basic” or “Advanced” search engine?

Photos size: when I click on a thumbnail to see an enlarged version of the photo, it always opens up in “medium”. I’m a particular fan of watching photos on the full size option (Large) and not this middle size. On the old site you could always choose “medium” or “large” from the thumbnail and I really miss this option. Maybe adding a user defined option on what size to open images would be a good idea too.

Stats: Please bring back the old “stats” feature for photographers, were you could see (among others) the photos you have uploaded by: year, county, airline, airport, etc. It showed the views and some other cool stuff. If I my suggest something, please look at JP’s (don’t trash me for that) “photographer profile” feature. I think it is way much more developed than the current A.net feature.

Photo Index: Another great one gone from the past version on A.net. please bring it back.

A feature such as planesspotters.net data center/ airlines fleet information would be useful too. Sometimes you take a picture of a plane and all you can see (registration wise) is that 3 letter code on the nose gear and finding what rego that corresponds too is such a pain, with a fleet database that could be fixed in a matter of seconds.

Link to photographer: when you click the name of a photographer, that “profile” section opens up. In my opinion that social profile kind of idea is not the reason you would click the name of a photographer, you click on his name to see the pictures he takes, not a cheap facebook kind of profile. Please help us bring back that feature, now the only way (I have found) to see one single photographers pictures is by doing a “cross search”. Leave the profile page as a secondary option.

Premium: please bring back the option for users that want to pay and not see an ad happy site. I use adblock, but I still hate all that blank space for ads.

Mobile: yes I agree, mobile is where growth is, mobile is the game changer. I think A.net needs to do (or update) a mobile app as one of its main goals. I see social media apps such as Instagram or flicker have lot’s more of “punch” than A.net does nowadays and I think many of the traffic A.net has lost is due to this particular two “new” giants.

Many people are not willing to turn on a computer and sit down to browse a.net when they get home after a long day out, times have changed. People browse everything on mobile now and although the A.net mobile page is way much better than in the past, it is still not 100% cool. I don’t like to see A.net on my phone, it simply doesn’t fit.

Build an app proper to compete with these social platforms, with simplified photo viewing options and a simple search engine (perhaps the usage of hashtags). Add some tools and trick’s for photographers out on the field like spotting guides with maps, METAR’s TAF’s, etc.

Final thoughts: as I stated before I think many photographers and photo enthusiast viewers have abandoned the site in favor of new mobile friendlier platforms. Just read this thread and see how we are all focusing on the forum, few people are talking about the photos that are what made this site great.

I think a.net forum is like no other and it is way ahead #1, but not any more when it comes to photos. Think about this: A photographer is out on the field and he gets a rare “hot” catch, he instantly turns on camera wi-fi and downloads the picture with his phone, one or two quick retouch clicks on the phone, instant add to a social media and the picture has thousands of views before the plane has even reached the gate. On the other hand, you need to come back home, download and edit the picture and wait for 7-10 days to get it on a.net. I know quality and all those things are worth it, but I think you guys have to re-think about how to being the #1 news center of airplane photos, social media has just beat a.net to the punch.

seriously not being a smart ass when i say this, but you guys really need to find Johan and bring him in as a consultant and bring this place back to what it was. Quality here has been going down ever since he sold and it took a huge nose dive with the new site.

Also a good house cleaning might be a good idea.

Good luck lol

Thanks for the input, I will have to read/learn up on him and see if it is an option.

However, we have gotten a dedicated development team and test environment setup for testing the updates.

The old website format was so much better. The "upgraded" page just seems like a cost cutting question mark. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Airliners.net laid off their Sr. Software Engineer workforce that built the site 15 years ago and replaced them with a class of interns from DeVry. A lot of the existing functionality went right out the window. Next time, try to do some UAT.

Did you know that a Boeing 717-200 is really a McDonnell Douglas MD95-30? ;-)

The old website format was so much better. The "upgraded" page just seems like a cost cutting question mark. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Airliners.net laid off their Sr. Software Engineer workforce that built the site 15 years ago and replaced them with a class of interns from DeVry. A lot of the existing functionality went right out the window. Next time, try to do some UAT.

What Sr Software engineers? Wasn't any really until Johan sold the lot. We did a UAT including all members of the team, the old manager didn't listen and rolled our a white site despite us saying not to. He was removed, and work started to get back to a more familiar look. Now with VerticalScope onboard that work will continue. But, the old site won't be back, ever.

...The look and feel of the old site was great for desktop viewing. Outside of work most people have moved off that platform. It's happened at such a fast rate that many of the "seasoned vets" on here haven't kept up.

... the "classic site" days are over. It needs to be mobile friendly.

I think there are two different issues here and it's important to not mix them up.

One issue is "back to the good ol' days", and while the original site did very many nice things, I'm not really pining for most of them to return. The few that I would agree with putting effort into, have by and large been mentioned here already, numerous times.

The other issue, and the reason I'm replying, is this notion that "most people" don't view the site on a desktop sized screen. I'd question that, strongly. Unless there are back-end statistics showing that most viewers are on a mobile platform (which I'm defining as tablet or smaller, NOT a laptop), I'm skeptical. I rather imagine that this is a case of "most" being "most people meaning me and some of my friends". If I'm wrong, fine, but I'd like to be proven wrong by statistics and not by opinion.

For myself, the notion of trying to read the forums on an iPad mini (my own mobile device) is a non-starter. So, I find myself convinced that most people view the site from a laptop or larger.

But if the forums were actually easy to read on an iPad or phone, mobile use would increase. As it is, the tiny font and excess white/blank space makes it brutal. I do it anyway but it tires my eyes.

...The look and feel of the old site was great for desktop viewing. Outside of work most people have moved off that platform. It's happened at such a fast rate that many of the "seasoned vets" on here haven't kept up.

... the "classic site" days are over. It needs to be mobile friendly.

I think there are two different issues here and it's important to not mix them up.

One issue is "back to the good ol' days", and while the original site did very many nice things, I'm not really pining for most of them to return. The few that I would agree with putting effort into, have by and large been mentioned here already, numerous times.

The other issue, and the reason I'm replying, is this notion that "most people" don't view the site on a desktop sized screen. I'd question that, strongly. Unless there are back-end statistics showing that most viewers are on a mobile platform (which I'm defining as tablet or smaller, NOT a laptop), I'm skeptical. I rather imagine that this is a case of "most" being "most people meaning me and some of my friends". If I'm wrong, fine, but I'd like to be proven wrong by statistics and not by opinion.

For myself, the notion of trying to read the forums on an iPad mini (my own mobile device) is a non-starter. So, I find myself convinced that most people view the site from a laptop or larger.

But if the forums were actually easy to read on an iPad or phone, mobile use would increase. As it is, the tiny font and excess white/blank space makes it brutal. I do it anyway but it tires my eyes.

This is what I don't get about people saying the new site is so much better on mobile. I much preferred the old one, again, for having everything on one page and condensed. Zoom your phone in to the borders of the text and scroll away. Now it's scroll past someone's username etc, scroll past some blank space, read their post. Scroll past their signature, then more blank space, then the next person's username etc. And then you end up at the bottom of the page and get to start again at the top of the next page. The old site was much simpler to use on mobile.

seriously not being a smart ass when i say this, but you guys really need to find Johan and bring him in as a consultant and bring this place back to what it was. Quality here has been going down ever since he sold and it took a huge nose dive with the new site.

Also a good house cleaning might be a good idea.

Good luck lol

What exactly do you mean by "bring this place back to what it was"? The old site was an awful mess that was next to impossible to manage (I speak as someone who worked behind the scenes as a moderator and screener).

What house cleaning is required? Give specifics, not vague generalisations.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana!There are 10 types of people in the World - those that understand binary and those that don't.

But if the forums were actually easy to read on an iPad or phone, mobile use would increase. As it is, the tiny font and excess white/blank space makes it brutal. I do it anyway but it tires my eyes.

By ruthlessly trimming out all of the borders, shrinking the avatars and icons, etc, it might be just barely possible to make a forum (any forum, not just this one) tolerably readable on a full sized iPad. On a mini, there's not enough room for both decent context and a readable sized font; the effect is like reading through a porthole, and phones just intensify the effect. No thanks.

Actually, the old one was much, much worse. Very early-2000s, and awful on mobile. That is bad because (1) mobile is the only area where growth is, and (2) Google now penalizes sites that aren't mobile optimized. Additionally, switching from a custom, ancient, slow code to a widely-used 3rd party forum software is much better from a long-term management standpoint. The new forum doesn't clog up when there are over 100 responses to a tread, so no need for the stupid "Part 36" nonsense (although some mods still seem to be stuck in the old habit). Can't believe people actually miss the terrible old A.net.

Yes, what non-sense that was.

The Search function on the old A.net was not dependable.

If someone starts a thread topic on great films involving airlines, then there's no need at all to "Close" that thread after so many days or months. And than have to re-start a new thread, on the very same subject a half a year later.

I laughed at the misplaced hubris of the old A.net's boast of the number of threads started on their site, as if that some credibility.... Having to re-start threads, and having "Part 36" threads really really "padded" those "threads started" totals.

The only thing I enjoyed about the old A.net message board setup, was the way it reminded me of working with IBM displays in the early 1980's, taking me back to those days of my 20's.

Ii think one thing that really need a fix (it has always anyway) is the search function (both for the forum and the photo database). currently finding something specific in the forum is virtually impossible.

I am not such a big fan of the "new" forum layout but I guess I somehow got used to it over time. Still find it difficult to have a quick browse through the topics

But if the forums were actually easy to read on an iPad or phone, mobile use would increase. As it is, the tiny font and excess white/blank space makes it brutal. I do it anyway but it tires my eyes.

By ruthlessly trimming out all of the borders, shrinking the avatars and icons, etc, it might be just barely possible to make a forum (any forum, not just this one) tolerably readable on a full sized iPad. On a mini, there's not enough room for both decent context and a readable sized font; the effect is like reading through a porthole, and phones just intensify the effect. No thanks.

I have kept out of the "mobile-friendly" debate up till now since I also used to find the old site much better on mobile - but that was using Opera "Classic" for Android, which had a vastly superior rendering engine than the current Chromium-based Opera and could dynamically re-flow all the text and elements as you zoomed in. That way you could see the nice compact list of responses on the default (desktop) view, but everything would rearrange if you tapped to read the text - no left-to-right scrolling ever required. And no wasted space, either.

Unfortunately, Opera Classic is unsupported so I recently had to abandon it, but I agree that the current site having loads of space everywhere is horrible both on a desktop *and* on mobile! I can only assume it's for people using rubbish mobile browsers so thick thumbs keep accidentally clicking links...

"As with most things related to aircraft design, it's all about the trade-offs and much more nuanced than A.net likes to make out."

But if the forums were actually easy to read on an iPad or phone, mobile use would increase. As it is, the tiny font and excess white/blank space makes it brutal. I do it anyway but it tires my eyes.

By ruthlessly trimming out all of the borders, shrinking the avatars and icons, etc, it might be just barely possible to make a forum (any forum, not just this one) tolerably readable on a full sized iPad. On a mini, there's not enough room for both decent context and a readable sized font; the effect is like reading through a porthole, and phones just intensify the effect. No thanks.

I have kept out of the "mobile-friendly" debate up till now since I also used to find the old site much better on mobile - but that was using Opera "Classic" for Android, which had a vastly superior rendering engine than the current Chromium-based Opera and could dynamically re-flow all the text and elements as you zoomed in. That way you could see the nice compact list of responses on the default (desktop) view, but everything would rearrange if you tapped to read the text - no left-to-right scrolling ever required. And no wasted space, either.

Unfortunately, Opera Classic is unsupported so I recently had to abandon it, but I agree that the current site having loads of space everywhere is horrible both on a desktop *and* on mobile! I can only assume it's for people using rubbish mobile browsers so thick thumbs keep accidentally clicking links...

Actually it's because that is hip and how Facebook does it and every site thinks they are being new and innovative by looking like every other site and now the web is full of white space and tiles and information spread every where and so much scrolling you can't believe it. Just visit a car website and see how maddening it is. Scroll scroll scroll, some information, scroll scroll scroll, more information. Wait, where are specs hidden? Scroll scroll scroll, no. Not there. Maybe I missed them half way up? Maddening. All to reduce drop down menus which don't always render right on mobile because the code is bad, not because they don't work when coded right.

As for the maddening Part36 stuff, well now we have multiple pages with far fewer posts per page, more scrolling, not really any more convenient.

As for search, us old folk knew that the right way to search was to use Google and make sure to put airliners.net in the search field along with your topic.

As for search, us old folk knew that the right way to search was to use Google and make sure to put airliners.net in the search field along with your topic.

yes that's what I do and it works well for general search. but if you look for something more precise like trip report based on particular criteria... it doesn't work so well. And I think a decent forum should have a decent search engine anyway

I have to laugh a bit about the idea of "bring back the old site". Not out of some sense of superiority, mind you...it's just that the old site was not coded to any type of industry standard. It was a hobby site that hit the bigtime. It was just one guy (Johan) coding everything himself as he went along, adding patch on top of patch. The end result was a website with some admittedly cool features, but apparently the backend was a horror show...the whole operation was running on random bits of code that made it impossible to update the site in keeping with evolving web standards.*

Long story short: What we loved about the site as users ultimately made it untenable as a web operation. That is why the old site will never come back -- not because it was bad, but because it is impossible to replicate.

The best we can hope for is that the owners can add back some similar features using the current framework.

Starting to get the "you won a free iPhone" takeover ads now requiring window closure. You guys need to be more careful who is serving your ads, as it can't be in your best financial interest of your company to spam customers with out redirects away from your sites.

Starting to get the "you won a free iPhone" takeover ads now requiring window closure. You guys need to be more careful who is serving your ads, as it can't be in your best financial interest of your company to spam customers with out redirects away from your sites.

Starting to get the "you won a free iPhone" takeover ads now requiring window closure. You guys need to be more careful who is serving your ads, as it can't be in your best financial interest of your company to spam customers with out redirects away from your sites.

Ditto

If you see this again could you please get a screenshot of the offending ad and send it to support@airliners.net so we can have it removed?

EDIT Kas:I'm sososososososo sorry! I wanted to reply to your post but accidentally pressed the edit button in stead of the quote button. I will see if I can retrieve your post, my most sincere apologies!

This is actually being looked into behind the scenes. And not an empty 'we'll look at it', but the developer has requested our feedback and I assume he will have a deeper look into the old mouse-over code later this week. When/if it will be up and running, I don't know. But from the vibe I get, it should be possible.

Not too surprising, as the mouse overs still work on posts that were made in the old forum when viewed with the current software. So it is just figuring out how to get it to apply when posting with the new software (and hopefully give you guys an easier way to update the database used to keep it modern and up to date).

A number of improvements have already been announced in the 'issues FAQ' thread in this subforum. Not everything was listed though, as I generally omit backend stuff. Or did you have something specific in mind?

Regarding the photo database, you've lost ALL my daily traffic to jetphotos for the following two reasons:1. No "photos added since your last visit" resettable counter. I used this every day after I got home from work, and have literally browsed at least a million of your photos.2. No ability to go DIRECTLY to a LARGE photo- I must open the photo, which defaults to medium, and then click large, which I'm sure gets you more ad hits, but doubles my data usage, and I'm not willing to fool with it.Fix those two things, and I'll probably blow another decades' worth of free time on a.net!

2. No ability to go DIRECTLY to a LARGE photo- I must open the photo, which defaults to medium, and then click large, which I'm sure gets you more ad hits, but doubles my data usage, and I'm not willing to fool with it.

Early on in this thread there was a comment about making the background white and having text black on a white background. For goodness sake don't do either of these things, there's a reason why graphic designers have a neutral grey background when working in Photoshop etc., it's to be easy on the eyes and get the maximum colour effect. Regarding text, you'll find plenty of studies of computer users where the majority of people find white text on a darker background much better for reading.

I am sorry, but 2 other major forums I am apart of (or should I say, was) were bought and taken over by VS. Today? It was ran into the ground and they are all but ghost towns. These were major traffic sports forums that had at its peak, thousands of posts a day. Once ownership changed from the founders it was all down hill. Ugh

I am extremely wary of this.

May I ask which sites, sometimes they split or the core group abandons the site. I have worked on many of them in our portfolio.

Jeff M

BasketballForum.com and any of the other sports forums I was once a part of.

Am I the only person that is super annoyed by the CIVIL AVIATION FORUM button on the homepage (In the Right Now in the Forum section)? It takes you to the Aviation Forums list instead of the civil section like it used to.

I'm fine with it pointing to the Aviation Forums list, the button just needs to be updated to match where it goes.

I hardly ever log on or post on this site anymore because replying in the forums drives me CRAZY!When I am reading through a thread I want to be able to quote a part of a post without having to automatically be taken into the reply box. I liked it before when I could highlight the area I wanted to quote and push the quote button and then it would be waiting for me in the reply box when I got to the end of the thread.

I hope this makes sense, I am not a highly computer savvy person so I don't know exactly how to describe this stuff!

I hardly ever log on or post on this site anymore because replying in the forums drives me CRAZY!When I am reading through a thread I want to be able to quote a part of a post without having to automatically be taken into the reply box. I liked it before when I could highlight the area I wanted to quote and push the quote button and then it would be waiting for me in the reply box when I got to the end of the thread.

I hope this makes sense, I am not a highly computer savvy person so I don't know exactly how to describe this stuff!

Heya,

Yeah I totally understand, let me see if we can add a Multi-Quote or other option to fix that.

1. Have VerticalScope taken over the airliners.net app on Google play and other app stores yet? The cobtact email for the app on google play is still demabd media.2. How long will this thread remain pinned here?

1. Have VerticalScope taken over the airliners.net app on Google play and other app stores yet? The cobtact email for the app on google play is still demabd media.2. How long will this thread remain pinned here?

I hardly ever log on or post on this site anymore because replying in the forums drives me CRAZY!When I am reading through a thread I want to be able to quote a part of a post without having to automatically be taken into the reply box. I liked it before when I could highlight the area I wanted to quote and push the quote button and then it would be waiting for me in the reply box when I got to the end of the thread.

I hope this makes sense, I am not a highly computer savvy person so I don't know exactly how to describe this stuff!

The current quote mechanism is far inferior to the old a.net one. The best you can do is get into the "full editor" either by clicking on a post's double-quote icon or going to the end of the page and select "full editor", then scroll past the "post a reply" window and "options" window till you get to "topic review" window, then click on "expand" on the right, and then you can select text and use the double-quote icon and it is pasted into the "post a reply" window for you.

VertScopeJeff wrote:

Yeah I totally understand, let me see if we can add a Multi-Quote or other option to fix that.

Yes, a better multi-quote option would really enhance usability of this site, IMHO.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the worldThe heart has it's beaches, it's homeland and thoughts of it's ownWake now, discover that you are the song that the morning bringsThe heart has it's seasons, it's evenings and songs of it's own

Starting to get the "you won a free iPhone" takeover ads now requiring window closure. You guys need to be more careful who is serving your ads, as it can't be in your best financial interest of your company to spam customers with out redirects away from your sites.

Ditto

I'm getting this lately it's an absolute pain! Kind of glad it's not just me.

two things I'd like to see1. fix the clock that says how old a post is.. on numerous occasions "moments ago" turns out to be up to 6 hours ago.. I know some crew don't believe it, but it's true.. sometimes when checking, as one crew member suggests, it will show that the posted time is up to 4 hours in the future even though I read the post several hours ago.. . 2. limit use of a title beginning with "Breaking" to the first 12 hours of posting.. and remove the word after that.